Boss dramas - advice?

where are you? in the UK that is illegal. there is a principle of equivalent pay for equivalent work, and another on less preferential treatment. both probably apply here. the difficulty of proving it, however, surrounds whether or not she can got hold of the other woman's old contract of employment before she was promoted. the employment contract should list all the duties each role entails, so you can then cross-reference the two contracts to find out how similar the jobs are. remember, the rule of equivalence is about equivalent skills needed and equivalent workloads - they don't have to be doign the same sort of tasks. this is quite hard to prove if they're not doing the same sort of tasks, but not impossible.

i'd say, a good starting point, legally, would be to try and get hold of that other woman's original contract. of course, it's generally a good idea to avoid the formal legal side of things because they can be very protracted, messy and expensive. if you can settle this without going to an employment tribunal it is best, especially if the boss is blatantly favouring one employee over another. it may come down to the boss's word against hers. and in the eyes of the courts, the boss's word is always more trustworthy

it doesn't sound like it's a bullying or harrassment case YET, but for the time being it is best for the one getting paid less to write down in a diary everythign that happens to do with the issue, when (date and sign it) and with whom, so that if things get spiky there's good documentary evidence of any wrongdoing or mismanagement. it may well move towards harrassment if she begins to stand up for herself, so it is definitely worth keeping a diary of incidents.

i don't know how useful this stuff is, but it's worth knowing the legal context even if it doesn't get that far.

check out www.worksmart.org.uk for more legal eagle stuff

if you're in australia, check out http://www.rightsatwork.com.au/

i've heard it's quite a useful website for aussie legal stuff

Get as much down on paper is the general rule. Using a work email address is good because it records the questions and responses with dates etc.

Certainly if you have a post up online saying you'd like to do so, yes. I know you're pissed off, and rightly so, but you might want to be a bit more circumspect about some of what you're writing - there's easily enough detail here for someone who knows the situation to work out who you're talking about. As you said, you never know...